I Have So Many Names
by Albus Paulson
Summary: Gandalf. Mithrandir. Olorin. All three names are for the same being... but what if Gandalf's not a Maia spirit at all, but one who has travelled through dimensions to defeat Dark Lords? Harry Potter crossover.
1. Chapter 1

I Have So Many Names

_**Just after the fall of Sauron, at the Beginning of the Fourth Age…**_

Gandalf Greyhame stood on a veranda at Minas Tirith, a stooped and bent old man dressed in white robes, a smoky-grey cloak, and a pointed white hat that was a coarse mockery of the old blue one he had lost in Moria. He sighed, running his craggy hand through his long white beard and moustache almost absentmindedly as he thought.

"Mithrandir?"

He turned toward the voice, still a little on edge from the battle that was only days, felt like hours, and seemed only minutes, in the past. He relaxed slightly, but raised his bushy eyebrows curiously at the newcomer, as the voice's owner registered in his brain. _Elrond Half-elven. Why does he come here?_

"Yes, old friend?" Gandalf replied tiredly. His exhaustion did him no good, even in the fair White City, old Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun. Nightmares of all the wars he had seen, all the friends he had lost, all the innocents he could not save, saw to that. His millennia-old conscience would allow Gandalf no rest until darkness claimed him…

"Are you all right? You have seemed… off… since the battle." Worry was the only emotion he could hear in Elrond's tone.

"I am fine."

"You will always say you are _fine_, Mithrandir. You said you were _fine_ when Gwaihir the Wind-Lord brought you to Lorien, naked and fatigued. You said you were _fine_ when all hope was seemingly lost in the War, and you believed your friends dead." Amusement tickled through Elrond's tone as he thought on the saga of fighting evil, threaded together with near-death escapes, that was Gandalf's life; the irony of this was just too funny for the old elf. "You will always say you are _fine_, even if you are near death."

Gandalf chuckled, despite himself. "You remind me very much of the third friend I ever had." Memories threatened to overwhelm his consciousness for a few seconds, but he managed to Occlude them behind the dam again before he was engulfed.

"You have never told me of your life before I met you, other than you had a Dark Lord to destroy." Curiosity got the better of the old elven lord. "I know nothing of you, other than you came to the Shores after the other Istari, months later…"

Gandalf pulled off his hat and ran a hand nervously through his white hair, making it even messier than normal, and that was saying something, as on the average day it looked like birds had nested in it.

"You are right." Gandalf began softly as he gazed piercingly to Elrond. It would have been a disconcerting stare, had Gandalf actually been looking _at_ Elrond, but now he seemed to be seeing something else, a memory perhaps…

He shook himself physically, bringing himself back to Middle-Earth. "I have been called many names, and many titles. I was called Gandalf, Mithrandir, Icanûs, Olórin, Tharkûn, Baleygr, Farmagûd, Fimbulthul, Fjolnír, Harbard, Hroptr, Vafudr, and so many other names. I was called the Chosen One, the Boy who Lived, the Man who Conquered… the list is too long to recount. Few know of my proper name, in this day and age.

"I was born over a thousand years ago, in a universe parallel to this one." Seeing Elrond's comprehension, he continued. "It was a place called Britain, where those with magic, like me, have a government separate from that of the Muggle one."

"Muggle?" Elrond inquired confusedly.

"Someone without magic,"

"Ah,"

"Anyway, I was born to a witch and a wizard, she born of two Muggle parents, he born of a mostly-Wizard line. At the time, a Dark Lord was plaguing the world, and hope was lost. The resistance was outnumbered ten to one by the Death Eaters, the followers of the Dark Lord, and they were being killed before they could help save the world.

"Just when the world was at its darkest, the Leader of the Light overheard a prophecy. This would not have normally been a very big thing, but this was not your average prophecy that just tells you whether or not you're going to die tomorrow.

"This was a prophecy that foretold of the end of the Dark Lord." Gandalf stopped, as if the memories he pulled on were excruciatingly painful to remember.

"What did it say?" Elrond asked softly, fearing the answer.

"'_**The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…'**_

"It meant that the only one with the hope for destroying the Dark Lord, who in my universe was called Voldemort, was born at the end of July to parents who had fought Him three times, and surviving each time. He would be 'marked' as his 'equal,' but he will be able to use power that Voldemort never could. Eventually, only this boy had any hope of defeating Voldemort, because while he still lived, Voldemort would chase him, and if he intended to live without fear, then he had to destroy his enemy,"

Gandalf stopped to breathe. "There were two boys who could have fit the Prophecy's parameters. One was a boy I grew to admire for his courage and stout heart, named Neville Longbottom, son of Frank. The other was Harry Potter, son of James; I am he." Gandalf's eyes, green as the Ithelien grass, blazed with the fire that comes from wielding one's true name.


	2. Chapter 2

I Have So Many Names

Elrond raised his eyebrows in a gesture that either meant _'continue, please, I am quite interested,' _or _'what in heck…?'_

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

Gandalf pinched the bridge of his nose, as if trying – and failing – to ward off a monster of a headache. "My parents were both killed just after my first birthday. Voldemort broke through the wards around the house, including the Fidelius charm, using information he got from one my father's closest friends. He killed my father first, and then went after my mother."

His eyes glazed over as he remembered the Dementor-incited memory. "He didn't want to kill her, she wasn't worth his trouble. But a mother's love is enough to defeat anything that threatens her child. She threw herself in from of the Killing Curse, and in her death I was able to live. Voldemort attempted to use the same curse on me, but it rebounded, ripping his soul from his body, and sending him into a spirit form for a decade."

If Elrond wasn't hooked on the story before, he was now. "The calm before the storm, it is, the deep breath before the plunge. Must all wars begin and sustain themselves in the same manner?" he muttered to himself.

Gandalf heard him anyway. "Yes, indeed. I found it so as well." He pulled his pipe from his robe pocket and lit it, the embers in the bowl making his face glow an amber color in the evening twilight. Gandalf took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the smoke to drift lazily in the night breeze. "That was when I was 'marked' as Voldemort's equal in power. I was left on the stoop of my aunt's home, the dwelling of my last blood relative.

"I was treated as worse than a slave. I cooked, I cleaned, I gardened, and in return I was given a cupboard under the stairs to sleep in and a bite of breakfast. I was alone and friendless for the first decade of my life that I can remember. Alone, until a giant of a man came to tell me of my _magic _I existed - barely. He was my first friend, the one called Hagrid, the one who rescued me from my relatives.

"I was shoved into this new world headfirst at the age of eleven, learning so much in my first year at a school for young wizards and witches who wished to learn the art that is casting magic. I made my second friend, Ron Weasley, son of Arthur, on my first day at the school, at Hogwarts. I just tried to adjust to the new environment for the first two months. When Samhain came, the anniversary of my parents' death for me, I saved a friendless girl from a troll, saving her life and making her my third friend, Hermione Granger, daughter of David.

"Near the end of spring that year, the Dark Lord possessed one of my teachers and went looking for a rock called the Philosopher's Stone, which was believed to have properties that would give one eternal life.

"Ron, Hermione and I put a giant three-headed dog to sleep with music, wrestled a strangling plant to get through, flew to get a rusty key to open a door, and played a game of chess to cross a room; Ron fell, taken and unconscious, during the game, but his sacrifice allowed the game to be won.

"Hermione and I continued on, through the traps meant to stop anyone trying to get near the Stone. She used logic to illuminate the path – but only one could pass. I went forward, and she went back to help Ron and notify the Leader of the Light and my mentor, Albus Dumbledore.

"I had made it through to the last trap, the one set by the greatest light wizard in a millennia. This was a mirror that showed the deepest and most desperate desire of your heart, the Mirror of Erised. _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on whosi…_I show not your face but your heart's desire…" Gandalf trailed off, gathering his memories and marshaling his train of thought.

"What did you see?" Elrond asked curiously.

"When I first encountered the mirror, it showed me my parents, the hope of having a family that didn't hate my guts because of who and what I was. Then, my headmaster found me and told me, _'It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live…'_

"I left the mirror alone after that.

"But now, I was not alone in the Hall of the Mirror. The possessed teacher stood before me. As I drew nearer to the center of the Hall, my scar prickled and burned with pain." He paused and traced the now-faint outline of a lightning bolt scar, nearly hidden by those eyebrows of his that seemed to almost have a life of their own. "The teacher bound me in conjured ropes and pulled me nearer to the Mirror of Erised, so that I could gaze into it once more.

"I wished with all my heart to see where the Stone might be, so that I could keep it from the clutches of Lord Voldemort. To my surprise, I saw myself, holding the Stone. Then I winked at me and patted my pocket. As I saw myself do so, I felt a large heavy rock fall into my pocket…

"However, my halfhearted lie to keep the teacher from the Stone didn't fool Voldemort.

"I was faced with my enemy. He taunted me, putting the promise of bringing my parents back before my face. I refused, and he ordered his host, my teacher, to kill me.

"The host could not touch me without giving himself great pain. Voldemort, as a servant of the Void, could not touch a child of the Flame of Anor, and he fled his host, killing the man. I was lost to unconsciousness as Voldemort used what little magic he could as a wraith to hurt me in whatever way he could.

"I awoke three days later in the healer's wing, groggy but unhurt. My headmaster, a man I loved as a grandfather, explained all this to me, but when I asked of why Voldemort targeted me in the first place, he refused, telling me that I was too young, that I had to wait.

"The school year ended, and I returned to my relatives' house. I was again treated as a slave, starved nearly to death by the time Ron and his older brothers, the Twins Gred and Forge, uh, make that Fred and George, rescued me.

"During that year, a fragment of soul, housed in a Diary, made its way into the school. It controlled the girl who owned it," Gandalf paused to swallow before continuing in his wading through the terrible memories of that year, "Ginny, daughter of Arthur, Ron's younger sister… and my wife, later in our lives.

"What, you didn't think I'd been a bachelor all my life, eh?" he said, chuckling at Elrond's expression of shock. "Well, I wasn't. Where was I… oh yes!

"During that year, the Diary, possessing Ginny, released a Basilisk into the school. No one died, though six students were turned to stone. I was suspected as the villain by my classmates that year.

"I ended up saving Ginny's life by traveling into a secret chamber, killing the Basilisk with the sword of my ancestor, Godric Gryffindor. I used the Basilisk fang to destroy the Diary – and the fragment of soul housed within it. Near death, as the serpent had managed to bite me, a phoenix healed my wound and the poison that would have left me a bloody puddle was nullified.

"Ginny survived, though she was badly shaken by the ordeal.

"The next year, a mass murderer escaped the island he had been imprisoned upon, sending the Wizarding world into a panic. Soul-destroying daemons, called Dementors in my dimension, were placed around my school to keep the escapee away from the children.

"That year, my third year at the school, I learned of the how and why of my parents' deaths. They were betrayed by a friend they had trusted, sealing a protective charm, the Fidelius, into his soul.

"They had no idea that their trusted friend was the spy, nor did they once think that his true allegiance was to Voldemort. But, he was indeed, and on Samhain, All Hallows Eve, my parents were betrayed by their friend and killed by the lunatic Lord.

"At the time, the betrayer was believed to be a man called Sirius Black, and he was forced onto the island without a chance to defend himself, but he was the escapee, the only one to ever leave the island without outside aid.

"I learned that it was not Sirius who was the betrayer, but the betrayed. Another of my father's friends, Peter called Wormtail, was the traitor, the spy, the turncoat.

"I, with the help of Ron and Hermione and a nifty little device that allowed us to mess with ourselves in time, saved Sirius – my godfather – from a pack of the Dementors. My comrades fell, overcome with the evil memories that the daemons inspired.

"But I did not.

"I resisted, and cast a spell that made my enemies flee, saving the lives of my friends and godfather."

Elrond gaped at his friend like a fish out of water. _He did all these things… At an age when our offspring are in the midst of mild teenage rebellion, he was saving lives and destroying Dark Lords. Amazing…_


	3. Chapter 3

I Have So Many Names

Gandalf continued, oblivious to Elrond's expressions of astonishment. "In my fourth year, I battled dragons and merpeople, lions with the heads of people and gigantic spiders.

"I also saw Voldemort resurrected. I believe the old enchantment went something like this: 'Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son.' That was supplied by Riddle Sr.'s grave, the bone of his arms turned to dust but still valid for the corrupted magic.

"'Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master.' That was provided by Wormtail's right hand, flesh of the betrayer of my parents and murderer of one of my friends.

"'Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe.' He used me to build his body, my blood. I still have the scar on my arm, where the cut me with that knife." He unconsciously rubbed at the crook of his right elbow.

"That summer I was isolated from my friends and from the Wizarding world. I had no idea of what was going on, or of the smear campaign the corrupt minister, Fudge, was using to destroy the name I had made for myself with my blood, sweat and toil…" he trailed off, nearly entirely lost in the old memories.

"I was kind to everyone. Shy, yes, but not an easy target to gossip against, even with my fame. Fudge," Gandalf spat the name, as though its mere utterance would befoul him, "destroyed that, what I had worked so hard to build, or rather had worked so hard to keep from standing. He called me an **attention seeking** **lunatic** –" the wind picked up, making the two beings' robes to swirl about, "- **a** **deranged** –" fire glimmered from Gandalf's fingers, "-**Liar!**" thunder rolled as electricity flashed into a halo of crackling sparks around Gandalf's head.

Then, as sudden as its onset, the storm fell away as Gandalf Occluded the memories back into the dam within his mind, where they belonged and where he worked to keep them. Elrond noticed that the wizard looked drained, and weary, but stood on steady feet and did not sway or stumble.

Gandalf continued. Elrond doubted that he could stop at this point, as Gandalf looked less and less burdened with each tidbit of knowledge given. "I was persecuted for standing up for that which I believed in, and for defending myself and my kith and kin. Voldemort entered my mind more and more, leaving me with a huge amount of anger that I **really** didn't need. Visions of a long corridor and rows of glass orbs filled my dreams, while my waking hours were riddled with the ridicule of others. No rest did I get, in night or in day, in light or in darkness.

"I know **now** that Professor Dumbledore was just trying to protect me by presenting a smaller target to Voldemort, but a fat lot of good that did me. I was tortured by one of Fudge's cronies during the school year, making me engrave 'I Must Not Tell Lies' into the back of my own hand."

Elrond noticed that Gandalf was subconsciously rubbing at his right hand, where in the moonlight now he could see the strange characters scratched into Gandalf's hand.

_Those characters are unlike any other letters I have ever seen. Even I, a great lore master of the ancient days, cannot understand those._

"That year, I watched as my godfather was murdered before my eyes, falling through the Veil between life and death. I faced Voldemort again, and survived – barely – when he tried to possess my mind and body."

For a split second, Elrond caught the flash of ultimate agony in Gandalf's eyes, the pain of a man who was shattered into a million tiny fragments in a split second, and pulled himself back together with sheer force of will.

_And he did this at the age of fifteen. _Elrond's heard was swollen with pity for this being that had endured such hardship in the early years of his life.


	4. Chapter 4

I Have So Many Names

"The next year was better, yes?"

Gandalf shrugged. "Yes and no. I was finally believed by the people and the government, but their support meant little as long as Voldemort wanted my head on a pike. That was the year I learned of the true value of the pieces of Voldemort's soul."

"He cut his _soul_ into pieces? How would you _do_ that?"

"Through murder." Gandalf's face was stony. "Through the act of killing an innocent person, the soul is ripped in two. A Horcrux – that's what the soul bit is called – is encased in an object, which acts as the soul's body. As long as that Horcrux is alive, so to speak, the owner cannot leave the world through death. The Horcrux must be so destroyed that it cannot be repaired."

"Can one make more than one Horcrux?"

"Before Voldemort, no one had ever tried."

"But he did?"

"Yes." Gandalf's eyes grew sad. "He made six Horcruxes on purpose."

"_Six!?"_

"Yes, six. One was the diary I destroyed in my twelfth year. Another was a ring with a strange stone – Albus Dumbledore destroyed that one before his death. The third was a locket that belonged to Voldemort's ancestor, and a fourth was a golden cup. The fifth was a diadem of wisdom and lore, and the sixth was Voldemort's familiar, a gigantic snake called Nagini."

"You said your mentor died? How?"

"He had sustained an injury when he destroyed the Horcrux in the ring. It would have killed him within a year, so he arranged his death with the man he had spying on Voldemort."

"He arranged his own death?"

"Yes, and I was there to witness him fall during the attack on Hogwarts."

"What did you do after your leader was killed?"

"Ron, Hermione and I went after the other Horcruxes during what would have been our seventh year. One – the locket – affected Ron particularly badly, but he came back and managed to save my life."

"What about Voldemort? What was he doing?"

"He was trying to find a legendary wand of immense power, the Elder Wand, that would allow him to defeat any opponent in battle. He found that it was in Dumbledore's possession when he died, and so opened his tomb to steal the wand."

"So Voldemort had it?"

"Yes, but he was not the Elder Wand's master, and so he could not use it to its full potential; he would have to defeat its master in order to take control, and use it to full effect against his enemies.

"We weren't sitting on our hands during all this, either – by the time we had found out where the diadem was, only it, Nagini, and Voldemort himself remained of Voldemort's soul – or so we thought."

"You were missing a Horcrux?"

"Yes. Myself."

"Voldemort made _you_ into a Horcrux?!"

"Not on purpose. During the night in which my parents were killed, Voldemort spilt his soul with his own death, and when he was blown from Wales to the Giant's Causeway, that fractured bit attached itself to my soul, and it became part of me, and it became as if it was my own soul."

"So you had to die to kill Voldemort?" Elrond attempted to wrap his mind around the concept.

"In so many words, yes. But Voldemort made two critical errors. The first allowed me to survive, and the other allowed me to defeat him.

"The first was when he used my blood to create his new body."

"Yes, I remember. 'Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken,' –"

"'You shall resurrect your foe,' yes. But, as long as Voldemort and the body lived, I could not die."

Elrond raised his eyebrows. "Indeed. What of Nagini and the Diadem?"

"The diadem was hit with magical fire that made it melt. The snake was killed by a man we all underestimated – my friend, Neville Longbottom." Gandalf smiled wanly. "Voldemort's second major miscalculation was when he attempted to use the Elder Wand against me."

"Who was its master?"

"First it was Draco Malfoy, my 'enemy' at school. He disarmed Dumbledore before the spy killed him. Then, about six moths later, I disarmed Draco Malfoy, and the mastery passed to me; the wand refused to act against its master, and when Voldemort sent a Killing Curse at me, it rebounded and killed him."

"And you were free."

"Yes, I was free for many years. Ron and I married Hermione and Ginny, respectively; they had two children, Hugo and Rose, and Ginny and I had three – James and Lily, after my parents, and Albus, after my mentor. Ron and I destroyed and remade the police force, and Hermione took over the government, making it far more efficient and moral than before."

"How did you come to be here?" Elrond asked. "You have told me about your past, but not how you came to be in Middle Earth."

Gandalf's eyes twinkled. "Near the end of my natural life – I was nearly two hundred years old, but still powerful and still strong in body and spirit – a phoenix came to me. It was Fawkes, Albus Dumbledore's phoenix. He spoke to me in thoughts and images, asking me to come to a different world, where they needed a mentor, a counselor, a teacher, and a warrior; they had need of a man like me. A great evil had arisen, and their need was great. Morale was allowing the Dark to win, and I could not stand by, watching them die, and know that I could have helped.

"I let Fawkes take me to this world, to Valinor. Manwë gave me my mission and a name, Olórin, and sent me to follow Curumo, Aiwendil, Allatar and Pallando to Middle Earth. Círdan gave me the elven-ring, and it heightened my ability to do fire-magic. And, my friend, you know the rest."

"How are you going to return?"

"I will go on the last ship to Valinor, and then Fawkes will take me to my dimension again, since my task is done. No time will have passed to them, and only my wife knew that I would go. I will probably pass away in my sleep, a few weeks from now."

"You're not immortal? After all, the Valar sent you back after you defeated the Balrog."

"No, I will die like all wizards do, in the end. The Valar only sent me back because my task was not yet done. Now it is, and I can finally rest."


End file.
